“I’ve been waiting to meet you,” Bill exclaimed. “I was so damn happy when you called me, yesterday!”
“I’m really glad you could make it up,” I said when I could breathe again.
Once Bill let me down, I turned to Emma and Saul. “I want to thank you both so much,” I said.
“What for, son,” Saul asked.
“For doing what my parents failed to do. For loving Amy and raising her to be such a great person.”
Emma teared up and Saul was blinking rapidly as he searched for something to say. Suddenly, I was engulfed in another monster hug from Bill. He lifted me off the ground.
“You and I are going to be friends,” he said.
When he set me down I said, “I think we probably already are.”
Part Four:
The afternoon was in full swing. Everyone had overeaten as required by Aunt Ellie. Chris was happily playing with his new distant cousins and Clare was chatting away with Rose about teaching and cooking. Clare was well on track to going to the Culinary Institute of America and Rose was more than a little jealous.
Amy sat down next to me in a lounger and smiled at the scene. “This is so lovely,” she said.
I had been mulling a thought for a little while about taking Amy on a walk to the far side of the farm. No, not for pervy reasons. The family cemetery was there.
Okay, so maybe I did want a few minutes alone with her.
“Where are your parents,” I asked.
“They’re completely taken with Aunt Ellie. They’re off doing old people stuff.”
“Want to go for a walk?”
“Yeah, sure,” she answered.
We stood up and I made a quick detour to a card table where Sophie, Lys, Bill and Allen were playing “Uno”. I could see that Sophie was playing as cut-throat as I taught her and I was amused to see Allen was giving her a run for her money. “Give her Hell, Allen. She thinks she’s the queen,” I said.
Everyone chuckled and I continued, “If anyone is looking for us, I’m taking Amy out to the grove.”
Sophie looked at me in surprise. “*You’re* going to the grove?”
“Yeah, I think Amy should see it.”
We bid goodbye and began to walk across the field behind the main house. I led Amy to a well-manicured path and we followed it across the property as it wound up a hill. As soon as we knew we were out of sight Amy’s hand intertwined with mine and she asked, “What’s the grove?”
“It is the family cemetery,” I said, “I don’t normally go out to it. I’m not religious and I think a body is just a body. The person is long gone. But I think you should see it all the same.”
She reached up and kissed my cheek but kept her thoughts to herself.
Ten minutes later we came to the top of the hill. A well-maintained lawn stretched out dotted with graves. The graves dated as late as 2020 and as far back as the 1700s. We were a big family. There were a lot of graves.
Amy wandered them for a few moments and then I led her to a few specific ones.
“This is our grandparents, Jane and Wendell Borden. They were married at 19 and were told it would never work. They stayed married until Grandpop’s death in 1977. The ones immediately around us are all of our aunts and uncles. Couple of cousins, too.”
She looked at each in turn then I led her near the edge of the grove. “This is Mom and Dad.”
Amy kneeled down and put her hands on the headstone. I heard her speaking quietly to them but I didn’t feel right listening. I picked up a few words and phrases; among them, “I don’t understand yet,” and “but I do forgive you. David will too, someday.”
I know by this point I again had tears in my eyes. I didn’t deserve this woman as either a sister or a lover but by someone’s blessing I had her as both. “Don’t fuck this up,” I said to myself though the voice in my head sounded more like my father than me.
“Is she here,” Amy asked. She didn’t have to specify; I knew who she meant.
I pointed to a lone grave at the very edge. I knew the epitaph on the headstone by heart. “Grace Elizabeth Drake. Beloved Wife and Mother. Only You.”
“Only you” was what Grace and I said to each other in addition to “I love you”. It was our way of saying we had eyes for nobody else. It was the last thing she said to me before her lungs failed her and they had to intubate her. And it was here that I was turning that into a lie.
Amy knelt down next to Grace’s stone. “Hi Grace,” she began, “I’m Amy, your sister-in-law. Yeah, surprise! You have a sister-in-law. I am so, so sorry that we never got to meet but I feel like I’m getting to know you. I see you in Rose and Sophie; and even in David. I would have loved to have had long talks with you and had drinks and dinners and girls’ nights. I don’t know what you think of what’s going on, but I hope you understand. I’ve loved David for all my life. I’ve dreamt of him. And you, through his eyes. I hope you understand and can accept me as … well whatever this becomes. And thank you. Thank you for taking such good care of my brother until I found him. Thank you for helping his heart. I feel like I love you as well for everything you did. If you’re watching, please know that you can rest. The girls and I will make sure he still remembers to live. Thank you so much, Grace.”
Everything went numb and I sat down hard on the ground and started sobbing. My whole body was wracked with gasping sobs. It was embarrassing at first but I quickly didn’t care. When Grace died Rose was barely 19. I had to hold strong through the funeral. I never shed a single tear. I drank-boy did I drink. But I never cried.
I felt Amy’s arms surround me. She touched her face to mine and we sat cheek to cheek. Her cheeks were as wet as mine.
“It will be okay, David,” Amy said again and again.
Amy and I turned to face each other and gently kissed one another. I held her there then, forehead to forehead as I pulled myself together.
“It’ll be okay,” she repeated. “We’ll figure this out.”
I took Amy’s hand and kissed it. “C’mon. There’s one more place I want to show you.”
I stood up and led Amy up another path on the other side of the grove. We climbed a small hill up to a gazebo that had a view of most of the farm.
“Grandpop built this,” I explained. “It is my favorite spot on the farm. I would sit here for hours as a kid.”
“It is beautiful,” she said.
We sat down on the bench with a perfect view of the house down below. “What are we doing, Amy?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I know I like it. A lot.”
“Sophie asked me that this morning. I told her it was like two strangers who had found comfort and pleasure in each other. I don’t think that’s entirely the truth, is it? We aren’t strangers at all, are we?”
“No,” she said, quietly.
“Sophie asked me if I love you.”
“What did you say,” Amy asked looking at me.
“I told her ‘I don’t know. Maybe. Probably,” I leaned close to Amy, our lips almost touching, “Yeah,” I said quietly and then kissed her again.
“I love you, too,” she said. “As a brother, as a lover, as someone that makes me whole.”
“You’re going to make me cry again,” I said with a smile.
“Asshole,” she slapped my arm, but her smile betrayed how happy she was. “We should probably head back before people start to ask questions.”
We stood up and I started heading down the hill toward the house.
“What are you doing,” she asked, “I can’t go down that hill. That way is way too steep!”
I turned around and grabbed Amy by the waste. She gave off a gasp of surprise, “What are you doing?” I smiled in answer and picked her up putting her into a “fireman’s carry” with her head at my ass.
“DAVE! Put me down,” she shrieked. “Put me DOWN!”
I ignored her completely and began walking down the hill. As we got further down I could see relatives pointing and laughing. Cheers of “Go Dave” and “Get her, Caveman!” rang up the hill. I admit I damn near dropped her when we heard Bill yell out, “Better pray he doesn’t fart, sis!”
Amy went rigid with the possibility. “If you fart on me you’re a dead man,” Amy hissed at me.
To the continued cheers of the family we made it down the hill and I put Amy back on her feet. Aunt Ellie was shaking her head at me trying to fix me with a disapproving look. I could see Amy’s father and “Bill laughing the hardest. I raised my arms in triumph and gave a caveman-like grunt.
“You’re going to pay for that later,” Amy whispered to me.
“I’m counting on it,” I replied.
Part V
The afternoon wore on and the sun set, cooling everything off. Cousin Eddie built a bonfire but I stayed up near the porch drinking a Coke. Bill sat down next to me, nursing a beer.
“I can’t thank you enough for inviting us,” Bill said.
“I’m really glad you could make it,” I said. “I think it helped Amy to have her people here.”
“You’re a good man, David. I’m really glad Amy found you.”
I gave Bill a salute with my Coke can and said, “Thank you, Bill. I’m really glad to have met you all, too. Though I don’t know how to read Allen, yet.”
“Oh…Allen’s okay. He’s a little worried that you’ll take his little sister away from us. I’ll tell you this though: Allen is a hypochondriac. Having access to a doctor all day has him in his element!”
I laughed and shook my head. “I hope he’s keeping Sophie on her toes.”
Bill’s face turned a little more serious. “You know that Amy dreamt about you, right?”
“Ya. She told me about the dreams and showed me the sketches. Fucking uncanny.”
“Yeah,” Bill agreed. “When she showed me a picture of you after she found you, I nearly shit myself.”
Bill took a long sip from his beer and resigned himself to say, “I need you to listen to this, so you understand. When Amy was little, she had the dreams several times a week. Every morning after she had one, she’d say things like, ‘the boy is cute, the boy is smart, or the boy is kind.’ Sometimes it was, ‘the boy is lonely.’ As she got older, she had the dreams less and less, but they never went away. Eventually it became, ‘the boy is hot’ and ‘the boy is a genius.’ As we got into high school it was ‘the boy is angry.’ She said that one a lot. One day in our 20s it became ‘the man,’ as in, ‘the man is married.’ She seemed pretty sad over that one; she’d long since decided she was in love with you, I think. Then one day it was, ‘the man is a father.’ That one made her happy; I never knew why. She got older, got married, had her kids. I never liked Christopher. He was–he is a douche. I always felt like she was settling. Then came August of 202. She called me in tears one morning and said, ‘the man is alone.’ She felt what you felt. I assume that was when your wife passed.”
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